Crime & Safety
Cathedral City Teacher Suspected In Multiple Child Sexual Abuse Counts, On Leave From District
Brian Ruben Marquez, 67, of Cathedral City is charged with seven counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old and other charges.
CATHEDRAL CITY, CA — A Cathedral City school teacher accused of sexually abusing five male students will remain on unpaid leave from his position in the Palm Springs Unified School District until his criminal case is resolved, officials confirmed Friday.
Brian Ruben Marquez, 67, of Cathedral City is charged with seven counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old, as well as sentence- enhancing allegations of targeting more than one minor in a sex crime.
Following a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Tucker found there was sufficient evidence to bound Marquez over for trial. She set a post-preliminary hearing arraignment for Aug. 26 at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
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Marquez is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at the Smith Correctional Facility.
PSUSD spokeswoman Joan Boiko confirmed Friday that Marquez has been on unpaid administrative leave since the investigation began, and there are no plans to change his status until after a trial.
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The defendant has been employed as a teacher at Cathedral City Elementary School since 2003. Boiko said that prior to that time, he worked in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 10 years.
According to the Cathedral City Police Department, in 2025, an investigation was initiated at the Cathedral City campus after officers received reports from an 8-year-old boy, whose identity was not disclosed, that the defendant allegedly had touched him inappropriately.
The exact circumstances were not provided.
Further investigation led to the identification of four additional alleged victims, all between 8 and 10 years old, police said. The criminal complaint identified the five boys only by their initials -- "A.R.," "J.H.," "K.M.V," "M.D." and "V.A."
Court papers alleged the abuse occurred between Sept. 1, 2023, and the end of May 2025. The specific locations where the alleged offenses occurred, and what happened during the encounters, weren't disclosed.
At the end of a roughly year-long investigation, Marquez was taken into custody without incident after he was summoned to the police department on May 27.
He has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
